New York, Part 1: the band-aids

I LOVE NEW YORK.

For years and year, visiting New York had been on my bucket list, but for some reason just never panned out.

And then I finally went to New York.

It took Matt Nathanson and my group of girls to finally get there. Surprised?

I had accrued many miles from flying with American Airlines, so I had scored myself a free flight, and used it towards my fare to New York. $5 to travel over 3,000 miles? I’ll take it.

I flew out of Monterey, which means I had 3 layovers. Yuck. And my first flight left at 5:45am. Double yuck. The first flight was only a little over an hour, with a quick stop in Los Angeles, and then it was back in the air for another 3. My second layover wasn’t as kind as the first, and I had almost 3 hours to kill in Chicago.

I wasn’t too happy about this at all, but then I stumbled across a Dunkin Donuts in the food court and I literally ran towards it. DUNKINS!!! It’s my all time favorite. Probably because we don’t have them in California. But their iced coffees…jeez why are they so damn addicting and delicious?

I ordered a large and went and sat in a corner and ate a pb&j I packed and drank my coffee like an adult. Ha.

I moved closer to my terminal about an hour or so before my flight was leaving. I was reading a book, and you know those moments when you can feel someone looking at you? I got that feeling and looked up to see someone was in fact looking at me. And then I realized I knew this person. Shiben. Matt’s bassist.

“Oh my God, hey!” I say. He came over to say hi and to gave me a hug and we chatted for a little bit. “I guess we’re going to the same place.” I joked. I love how he didn’t ask why I was there. He just knew. I asked where he was coming from, and he told me LA. I said how I had just been there too and how I’d been traveling since 5:45am that morning. Seeing as I am everywhere, he asked where I lived and we talked about California living for awhile.

“Well I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then!” I said when he needed to get back to his unattended bag.
“I’ll see you on the plane.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that too.” Haha.

Back on a plane for another hour and a half. I had passed out on the flight to Chicago, but I read and made myself stay awake on this flight because I am not a pretty plane sleeper (my mouth hangs open, my head nods back and forth, I tend to drool. Sexy.) and the last thing I needed was to be spotted by band members looking like a drugged out zombie. You would have done it too.

After 12 hours since leaving my house, we touched down in Buffalo and I was trying not to squeal with delight that I was FINALLY IN NEW YORK!

Amber, Beth, and Amanda had arrived much earlier in the day, and had planned on picking me up. But then they decided to go to Toronto and got stuck in Canada traffic coming back. Gee, thanks girls. 😉

So I’m sitting around waiting. Shiben walks by and says, “See you tomorrow!” This dude that’s with him gives me a weird look. I found out the next day he was Matt’s new drummer. Oh. Got it. You just don’t understand me yet. Hi, my name is Joslyn, and you will see my face everywhere. And no I am not crazy. Learn to love me. They all do eventually, dude.

So after an hour, I am about to cry because I’m just tired and want to be away from airplanes and airports. So I figure out there’s a free hotel shuttle and I didn’t even have to sit around for an hour. Pssh. It takes me to the airport which was literally ACROSS THE STREET. You mean I could have walked there? Fabulous.

There were free cookies in the lobby, which I shoved 2 in my face as soon as I saw them. Then I checked into the room and waited for the girls. My body hurt from sitting all day, so I lunged and squatted and did crunches. That burned off all the cookie calories, right?! Totally.

Finally the girls get to the hotel and we scream and hug in excitement. We soon after leave to head out for dinner and to see Niagara Falls, because we weren’t that far away.

We hit up Hard Rock because its close enough to where we could just walk over to the Falls. By the time we get there it was close to midnight and you can’t see much but colorful lights, but it was still amazing to see. So breath taking.

We head back to sleep and decided we wanted to see the Canada side of the falls in the daylight. We all had our passports with us, so we got up at 6am and headed over the border. We spent a good hour or so walking the perimeter and checking out the falls. Oh my. The Canadian side is SO MUCH better. Sorry, US. Canada wins this time.

We had to head back towards the hotel because Sam was arriving soon, and we wanted to pick her up at the airport. At this point we are all starving because we’d been awake for a few hours and hadn’t eaten, so the girls dropped me off at the hotel, and went to pick us up food. I needed to use the internet at 11am, because tickets for another Matt show in California were going onsale that was seated, so I needed to buy tickets right when they became available. My life, ladies and gents. Nathanson owns me.

After accruing a ticket and caffeinating, I went upstairs and we all got ready for the day.

As we were leaving the hotel, the elevator stopped on a floor and 2 guys stepped in. One of the 2 was C.C. DEVILLE.

C.C. Deville. You know. Guitarist of Poison? No? Bret Michaels band? Yeah. So he starts talking to us and Amber and I just give each other a look. The other girls had no clue who he was. He asked what we were up to that day and we said we were going to the harbor to see Matt Nathanson play a free show. He joked around that he didn’t know who Matt was, but wanted to go since it was free. Ha.

Once we got to the lobby, Amber grabbed my arm and was like, “That was C.C. Deville right?!” and I just went, “Mmmhmm.”

Matt was headlining a show downtown at the harbor, so we headed out to meet up with a few of Beth’s friends who were already there. When we arrived, Matt was in the middle of doing his soundcheck. We were basically the only ones there, and when he saw us, he said “Oh man, this is amazing. I should just play you all a show right now and then take you out to dinner.” HA.

After soundcheck was over and the band left, a few of us needed coffee (aka ME, the jet lagged caffeine addict) so Beth, Amber & I headed to find a Starbucks to get coffee. It was a lot further than we thought it’d be. Let’s just say we got our workout for the day. Then we melted as we waited for the show to start. Frozen yogurt may have been involved.

A band named Lights opened the show. I hope I never have to be around this band’s fan base ever again. Oh my. The screaming. It was high pitched and obnoxious. “LIGHTS! I LOVE YOU. LIGHTS! YOU’RE MY IDOL. LIIIIIIIIGHTS!” Yeah, hi. That’s my EAR you’re screeching in.

Once Matt came out, we were more than ready for the teenyboppers to be gone and to enjoy a great show. Great, it was. Towards the end of the set, Matt was rocking so hard that he…ripped his pants right open. Matt’s a hilarious guy and I’ve laughed a ton at his shows, but this…I almost lost it laughing so hard.

Matt was a rockstar, and only had a few more songs to go, so he finished the set, ripped pants and all.

Once the show was over, we hung out for a bit, then headed out to find food (a really bad choice of disgusting tacos) and then trucked it back to the hotel. An early morning and a long following day was coming up.

In the parking lot of our hotel, there were 6 tour buses. Well, hello. We walked into the lobby, and guess who was sitting there? C.C. Deville. We decided we were going to go tell him we knew who he was, and ask for a photo, because hello, when would this ever happen again?

So Beth is the balls of the group and walked right up to him and said, “C.C. I hate to bother you, but we totally knew who you are earlier and didn’t want to bother you. Could we take a photo with you?” and that was that. He ended up talking to us for a good 15 minutes. The guy is a little…strange. I think all the drugs in the 80’s have made him a little nuts? Nuts in a good way, though. We talked about Matt, and kids, and other random things. Then we took our epic photo. We thanked him profusely, and headed back upstairs.

Sam’s birthday was a few days later, so we busted out giant red velvet cupcakes to surprise her. We ate those things for the next 3 days. I think I’m still a little sick of red velvet, and it’s one of my ultimate favorites.

We finally went to bed and woke up to prepare for our 2 hour drive to Syracuse.  Matt was playing another show upstate, at the New York County Fair. When we got to the fair we walked around for a bit and found nasty fair food to eat. It is a must, don’t pretend you don’t love it too.

It was REALLY hot outside. New York summer does not mess around. I sweat a bucket out, and ate ice cream to replenish myself. My lord we ate so much in New York.

We were all happy once Matt finally came onstage. Luckily there were no opening bands, or annoying teenagers this round.

We got a lot of typical Matt love during the set. During one song, he completely messed the lyrics up, and I gave him an eye and pointed a “I caught that!” at him and he gave me an “Oh shit!” look back. Haha.

After his set we lingered for awhile, and Matt eventually came out to say hi to us lingerers.

“Hi guys! Everything going OK? Did you have fun?”
“No. Not at all.” I joked around. Why he asked I have no clue. He was the reason we were all in New York. Of course we were having fun! (Despite the heat exhaustion.)

Matt gushed to us about how he had new songs, and how he couldn’t wait to play them. He said he might play a new song, (“A song. Maybe a song and a half.”) at a San Francisco show he was playing at the end of September (didn’t happen). Ed Sheeran was playing right before Matt’s set, and he was expressing how fucking good he is, and how he was intimidated to play right afterwards.

We chatted for a few more moments, and then headed straight back to our hotel. We only had a few hours to sleep (3, I think?!) before our 4am wake up call. Next stop, NYC baby!!!!!!